And As They Kiss, Consume
by quicksilver-wind
Summary: Post-War oneshot. H/G, D/G. Sometimes love hurts.


**Disclaimer: I own nothing you don't recognize, the usual...**

Note: I should be writing my other fic, Jagged Edges (which everyone should check out), but this was rolling around in my head. It takes place long after the war. Please read and review and tell me if you like it.

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**And As They Kiss, Consume**

Draco cursed softly as he heard a knock on his door. He rolled out from under the soft arm of his wife and dragged himself out of bed. He cursed again. He wasn't young enough for midnight meetings anymore - the cold just got right to his bones. He knew he sounded like an old man rather than a middle-aged one, but still. It was damn cold, and his bed was warm and soft. And if the idiot woke up Scorpius, well then there'd be hell to pay. The youngest Malfoy was not a morning person and, like every other seventeen year old, would be in a foul mood if tired. No one liked a grumpy Malfoy.

He made his way downstairs to the door quickly, before whoever it was banged harder. Opening the door, he was confronted by a face he in no way expected to see.

Potter.

Given a thousand guesses, Draco would never have guessed that Harry Potter, the Chosen One, would be standing shivering on his doorstep at four in the morning in the freezing cold, looking like his world had just ended.

Draco was nervous. "Harry," he said as calmly as he could, "Come in."

They went to the kitchen, and Potter collapsed with his head in his hands on one of the chairs after extending the letter to Draco.

"You couldn't have used an owl?" he asked, still anxious.

Harry's voice was heavy and low. "I couldn't. She asked me to bring it myself. I promised her-" His voice choked off into something that sounded suspiciously like a sob.

Draco's heart stopped dead and he too fell into a chair, prying the seal off the scroll. Inside was the slanting handwriting that he knew much better than he should have.

_Draco,_

_I want you to know that I never forgot. I love Harry, and our family is my life, but I never forgot. And every time I see you, I know that you didn't either. _

_Goodbye Draco._

_With love,_

_Ginny_

His world collapsed out from under him and he was stricken with the worst feeling he had ever felt. Helplessness. He didn't know how to feel, how to react. It simply couldn't be true.

"She's..."

"Dead," replied Potter. Draco could see now that he was grieving deeply.

"How?"

"She tripped. She just tripped and fell, and then she was..." Harry was sobbing openly.

"Dead."

Draco's world fell in again, and he could only stare helplessly forward, the words "It's not true, it can't be true," running through his head. But it was. Ginny Weasley, Ginny Potter, the beautiful, vibrant woman he had known and loved was dead.

His wife came down the stairs, graceful even while rubbing sleep out of her eyes.

"Draco, dear, who was at the door? Was it--" she stopped when she saw Harry. She knew when she saw Draco.

Astoria was always elegant, but she went to Draco without any regard for decorum. She enfolded him in her arms and stroked his hair, and she clasped Harry's hand tightly. Draco still had someone to comfort him. Harry was alone. Somehow, however, she knew that while Harry could and eventually would recover completely from this blow, Draco never would. He had left part of himself behind when he had left her, and now that she was dead, another piece had floated away with her.

Harry left soon after. His relationship with the Malfoys was not such that he would share his grief with them. He had only taken the letter upon Ginny's request. She had told him everything, and he had understood. He had promised. But there was nothing to hold Harry and Draco together, so Harry left.

In the morning, and owl came announcing the date of the funeral. Astoria knew that Draco would go, would stand in the back. He would be unwelcome and unaccepted in that place, but he would go for her. He would be the one standing under a tree at the back of the cemetary as she was laid down. He would be the one who would sit by her gravestone until night fell. Then he would return home to his family, and things would return to normal, minus that little piece of Draco that would never return.

Everyone thought that when Harry had come back to Hogwarts for the final battle, Ginny had gone running back to him without a second thought, and that Draco had been the one left sad and alone. In truth, Ginny would have stayed, if he'd asked. She went back to Harry because Draco had told her to. She had gone back to Harry after crying for hours until she hurt from being so sad. Astoria knew that Harry had comforted her, not knowing the reason. They had gotten married a few years later and were fantastically happy. Everything about the Potter marriage was perfect.

Draco was the one who had let go, and he was left alone in the end. Eventually Astoria had come along, and she had understood. Draco loved her, as much as he was able. He did love her, but not the way he loved Ginny, and she understood. He told her the truth on their first date, and she had eventually realized that she loved him enough to accept that. Draco loved her, and he adored their son, and he was always caring and loyal to her.

Astoria understood because she knew that love like the love Ginny and Draco had shared was not happy, it was tragic. It was the kind of love in Romeo and Juliet - "these violent delights have violent ends... and as they kiss, consume". It came alone only once every hundred years, and instead of making them happy, it hurt them. Instead of loving memories, it left scars. Astoria understood because she didn't want that kind of love. She wished, vaguely, to experience something of that magnitude, but it had left both Ginny and Draco irrevocably changed and in some ways, broken.

She told Scorpius the whole story the next day while Draco was at the funeral. Lily Potter came over after the funeral, tears staining her face, to see her boyfriend, but she ended up hearing the story too. All three of them cried as they waited for Draco to come home.

Part of Astoria feared that he wouldn't come home, that he would kill himself first, but she knew Draco, and she knew that however he wished it, he would never betray her and Scorpius like that. So they waited.

Late in the evening, Draco finally came home. He was a man destroyed and spent. Lily started to cry again when she saw him.

"Dad, why'd you do it?" asked Scorpius sadly, "Why'd you let go?"

Draco stopped, and looked at his son. He looked at Lily and wiped the tears off of her face. "You look so much like your mother," he whispered. "What you two have is what I wished we had. But her and Potter was like a summer day. We were like a storm. In ten years, we would have hated each other. Love like that isn't supposed to last forever. It makes you tired. It takes every fiber of your being and consumes it. I let her go because I wanted her to be happy. I wanted to be happy. I loved her too much to see her sad. But I couldn't stop loving her, no matter how I tried. Like I said, we were like a storm. Like an explosion. Me loving her was killing her. So I let go. I had to. I just had to."

Draco walked upstairs slowly and Astoria followed him as Scorpius wrapped his arms around Lily. Sometimes, she thought, love conquers all. Including itself. Sometimes, love hurts.

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Note: The title and quotation are taken from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, act 2 scene 3 I believe. The full text is:

_These violent delights have violent ends,_

_And in their triumph die, like fire and powder, _

_Which as they kiss consume_

_- _Friar Lawrence


End file.
